La 13e dent du diable (Miklo)/plot
Even in 1949, American authorities had continued to search for missing American soldiers who had disappeared after becoming Japanese prisoners of war. Occasionally, they find some information or actually rescue a serviceman. One such soldier was Howard "Oklahoma" Colton who escaped from a prison camp and then hid in a native village for five years before being rescued by the US authorities. Colton has a disturbing story. A British chemist, Brian Shannon, who had been shot down over Malaya in 1943, had actually been his cellmate. Shannon had claimed to be able to develop an explosive of unequaled power and, according to Colton, the chemist had covered the walls of his cell with chemical formulae. Nobody knows where the prison camp was, or even if it still exists, but the formulae must not be allowed to fall into enemy hands. Air Commodore Raymond offers "Scotland Yard's best team". Biggles, Algy, Ginger and Bertie head for Malaya. Usig the cover of "Malayan Medical Aid", a relief organisation, they airdrop relief supplies to villages in the Malayan jungle while searching for any sign of the prison camp. On one such mission, they are blown far off course by a powerful storm and are then hit by mysterious gunfire from the ground. Their Douglas DC-3 crashes. Making their way on foot, they pass through village where, to their surprise, the entire population appears to have been massacred. All except for a woman, Jamila. Jamila explains that some bandits attacked her village and then headed towards a plantation in the east. Biggles decides to go in that direction as well but Jamila will not go with them. Biggles and co. head east for some distance and are then taken prisoner by Adjiad, who claims to be a commissioner of the Malayan Communist Liberation Army. His troops are a mixed bag: some Chinese communist rebels, local native tribesmen and even some European mercenaries. Adjiad wants to execute them as capitalist crooks but he is stopped by a European named Casey who prefers to hold them as prisoners under he gets fresh orders. Biggles and co. are taken to a village and warned that they would be shot if they attempted to escape. In the night, Jamila turns up to lead them away, telling them that Adjiad and Casey planned to execute them the next day. Leaving the village, they check out a truck and find it load with weapons and opium. So Casey is a drugs dealer who has been supplying the communist rebels with arms! But they are spotted by a sentry and Jamila is forced to shoot him, raising the alarm. Biggles and co. jump into the truck and drive off, hotly pursued by Casey and his men. The track peters out and our friends booby trap their truck and then set off on foot into the mountains. Casey and his men soon catch up but his men, locals, refuse to press on--it's a bad land they say. Casey is furious and asks them to fetch his colleague Wilkins and his team of guerillas--at least they would not be superstitious. Up in the mountains, Biggles soon learns why some of Casey's men are so scared. There is the remains of an old battlefield strewn with the bodies of dead Japanese soldiers. Nearby are the ruins of a vast temple complex. It looks like it had been used as Japanese outpost of some sort. There are lots of dead bodies as if a large group of Japanese soldiers had chosen to commit ritual suicide rather than surrender at the end of the war. In other chambers they find a large quantity of weapons and a horde of gold and jewelry, presumably what the Japanese troops had looted from the region. In some passages dug under the temple, they find more grisly remains. One dead body has a note in his hands. The writer, apparently a prisoner, states that his Japanese captors had just heard about the Japanese surrender. Rather than give in, they planned to kill all the prisoners and then themselves. In one of the rooms, Ginger finds what they are looking for--walls full of chemical formulae. As planned, Biggles photographs the formulae and asks Algy to lay charges to blow everything up (where did they get the camera and charges from? They had been prisoners of Casey). But first they must find a safe exit. At the base command post, they collect some documents, mainly registers of the names of the prisoners. There's a map with the layout of the place. Biggles asks Ginger and Algy to start laying the charges. Meanwhile, he and Bertie scout out an exit in the direction of the river. They break through an old wall and find themselves ... in a hangar! It has been built inside a cave opening on to the river and it contains a couple of Rufe fighters and a Kawanishi E11K flying boat. All in good condition with tanks full, as if someone had been working on them only recently! This is their ticket home. Biggles and Bertie go and tell the others about their find but ... meet Casey and Wilkins! They have found their way to the temple with some of their mercenaries. Biggles and co. are all captured. There's a light railway in the temple complex. Casey and Wilkins makes the prisoners load a wagon on the railway with the gold and jewelry--this wealth is too good to leave to the communist rebels, Casey asys. Suddenly there is the sound of shooting. Casey takes some men to check it out. Only Wilkins is left to watch them. Biggles manoeuvres quietly behind him and knocks him out. They grab weapons and move out to find Casey and the rest. In another chamber there is a big surprise ... Casey and his men have all been massacred! There's no time to find out why--the charges are about to explode. Biggles leads the way back to the hangar but they are then attacked by some Japanese troops. These are "holdouts", fanatical soldiers who had decided to continue waging war, refusing the order to surrender. Biggles and co. overcome the attackers but the last one is behind Biggles and takes aim at him with his pistol. Jamila throws herself onto Biggles, pushes him away and takes the bullet. Algy despatches the last soldier but Jamila has been killed. Back to the hangar, our friends pile into the Kawanishi flying boat, and to their relief, the engine starts. They taxi out into open water and take off. Unknown to them, one more Japanese "holdout" remains--a pilot. He climbs into a "Rufe" and takes off after them. Bertie manages to contact Raymond using the flying boat's radio, and the charges go off, destroying the temple. So it looks like mission accomplished. But not quite, Bertie spots a "Rufe" closing in from behind. There is a brief air combat. The "Rufe" is expertly flown and scores some hits, but he overshoots and gets in front of the flying boat. Ginger is manning the nose gun position and gets in a good burst, causing the "Rufe" to explode. But the flying boat has been badly damaged as well and the engine is on fire. They head for the sea and manage to put down on the beach of a small island. Right on cue, Raymond turns up with some Royal Navy Dragonfly helicopters to pick them up. Raymond asks about Shannon's formulae. Biggles shows him the camera--holed by a bullet. Some secrets are better left undiscovered. Category:Plot summaries (derivative works)